Results on bones linked to iconic work's sitter 'in four months'

(ANSA) - Florence, February 14 - Italian experts are closing
in on conclusive evidence of the identity of the sitter for
Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, one of the most iconic works in
the history of art.
Art historians believe that model was Lisa Del Giocondo neé
Gherardini, wife of wealthy Florentine merchant Francesco Del
Giocondo, who died in a convent in the Tuscan capital in the
mid-16th century.

Upcoming DNA tests on the "most significant" skeleton in a
batch unearthed in the convent two years ago will provide
clinching proof of her identity, the head of the project said
Friday.

"The final phase is starting, the one that can't go wrong,"
said Silvano Vinceti, an art sleuth tasked by Italy's heritage
committee.

"We are hoping for a positive result," he said, adding that
the tests will take about four months.

The tests aim to find out if the bones exhumed in 2012 date
back to the same period as that of the model who sat for
Leonardo, whose enigmatic half-smile thrills visitors to Paris's
Louvre museum and has become one of the most replicated images
in the world's cultural industry.
Vinceti said the skeleton's DNA would be compared with that
about to be taken from the remains of Gherardini's children,
buried in a family tomb in Florence's Santissima Annunziata
church.

If there is a match, the woman immortalised by the
Renaissance master, will be identified at last.

Italians call the Mona Lisa 'La Gioconda' both because of
her husband's surname, De Giocondo, and because 'gioconda' in
Italian means a "playful woman".
Leonardo buff Giuseppe Pallanti published a book in 2007
arguing the former convent "must be" her last resting place.
It took a few years for scholars to agree with him, before
the dig was started in 2011. According to Pallanti, Lisa del
Giocondo became an Ursuline nun after her husband's death and
died in the convent on July 15, 1542, aged 63.

The couple were married in 1495 when the bride was 16
and the groom 35.

It has frequently been suggested that del Giocondo
commissioned Leonardo to paint his Mona Lisa (mona is the
standard Italian contraction for madonna, or "my lady,") to
mark his wife's pregnancy or the recent birth of their second
child in December 1502.

Although pregnancy or childbirth have been put forward in
the past as explanations for perhaps the most cryptic smile in
Western art, other theories have not been lacking - some less
plausible than others.

Some argued that the painting is a self-portrait of
the artist, or one of his favourite male lovers in disguise,
citing the fact that Da Vinci never actually relinquished the
painting and kept it with him up until his death in Amboise,
France in 1519.

The most curious theories have been provided by medical
experts-cum-art lovers.

One group of medical researchers has maintained that the
sitter's mouth is so firmly shut because she was undergoing
mercury treatment for syphilis which turned her teeth black.

An American dentist has claimed that the tight-lipped
expression was typical of people who have lost their front
teeth, while a Danish doctor was convinced she suffered from
congenital palsy which affected the left side of her face and
this is why her hands are overly large.

A French surgeon has also put forth his view that she
was semi-paralysed, perhaps as the result of a stroke, and
that this explained why one hand looks relaxed and the other
tense.

Leading American feminist Camille Paglia simply
concluded that the cool, appraising smile showed that "what
Mona Lisa is ultimately saying is that males are
unnecessary".